We wear the mask that grins and li
It shades our cheeks and hides our
This debt we pay to human guile
With torn and bleeding hearts…
We smile and mouth the myriad subt

The earth was green, the sky was b
I saw and heard one sunny morn,
A skylark hang between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;
A stage below, in gay accord,

To step over the low wall that div
Road from concrete walk above the
Brings sharply back something know
The miniature gaiety of seasides.
Everything crowds under the low ho

It seemed an unlikely match. All
grinding its teeth in a plastic sl
nose-down from a hook in the darkr
under the hatch in the floor. When
it knocked back a quarter-pint of

What is reality?
I am a plaster doll; I pose
with eyes that cut open without la
upon some shellacked and grinning
eyes that open, blue, steel, and c

There are similarities
I notice: that the hills
which the eyes make flat as a wall
together, open as I move
to let me through; become

On the grass when I arrive,
Filling the stillness with life,
But ready to scare off
At the very first wrong move.
In the ivy when I leave.

I can see myself now
after all these suicide days and n
being wheeled out of one of those
(of course, this is only if I get
by a subnormal and bored nurse

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils

Tell me, tell me, smiling child,
What the past is like to thee?
“An Autumn evening soft and mild
With a wind that sighs mournfully.
Tell me, what is the present hour?

They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their t

I awakened to dryness and the fern
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled co
surrounded me with their uselessne